Purple Haze

A passage from Irene Iddesleigh, by Amanda McKittrick Ros, arguably the worst novel ever written:

‘False woman! Wicked wife! Detested mother! Bereft widow!

‘How darest thou set foot on the premises your chastity should have protected and secured! What wind of transparent touch must have blown its blasts of boldest bravery around your poisoned person and guided you within miles of the mansion I proudly own?

‘What spirit but that of evil used its influence upon you to dare to bend your footsteps of foreign tread towards the door through which they once stole unknown? Ah, woman of sin and stray companion of tutorism, arise, I demand you, and strike across that grassy centre as quickly as you can, and never more make your hated face appear within these mighty walls. I can never own you; I can never call you mother; I cannot extend the assistance your poor, poverty-stricken attire of false don silently requests; neither can I ever meet you on this side the grave, before which you so pityingly kneel!’

Mark Twain called it “one of the greatest unintentionally humorous novels of all time.” The whole thing is here.